Discarded family photographs found in a trash pile in Centralia, Pa.

Here’s two links to find out more about Centralia, Pa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-smoldering-ruins-of-centralia/

This is a gallery of an unknown family found photographs. The images here were found in a pile of trash in Centralia, Pa. near the toxic vents of the underground mine fire that has been burning unchecked since the 1969s. The town of several thousand has been reduced to a very small handful of people who still refuse to leave. In essence it is a modern day ghost town. I found these as I was wandering about shooting photographs as I have done for years in Centralia. It is a kind of hell on earth with smoke and gasses pouring out of the ground. I saw a few of these photos wet and really damaged near the top of the trash and was drawn in to look for more. The more I looked, the more I found. My natural reaction was to wonder why and how this family’s treasured photo could get here to a trash heap? People nearly always highly value family photographs over almost any other possessions. In the news nearly every day are stories of natural disasters and the survivors talk about rescuing their family photos or how devastated they are at having lost their family pictures. So it really saddened me to find the group of photos. I took them home with me and dried them out. I spent some time looking at them really hard and thought that they deserved to be preserved and that they were a compelling group of images that had been transformed by the weather water time and decomposition. I think they have a mystery and artistic component to them. There is the added element of loss and sadness that this family whoever they are has lost precious memories. There are a few short comments on the back of a few but they give no real clues to these peoples identities. Look at them and think how close these images have been to total destruction.